Monthly Archives: February, 2014

Have you ever done something you felt good about? Like, hey, maybe you gave money to save a kitten from the wrath of Alice. And then someone else comes along and says, “Well, you know, those kittens misuse those funds. Just the other day, I saw a kitten with a brand new catnip toy.” It’s like you had this cool new balloon and someone just went and stuck a pin in it. Cause you know, balloons will just deflate anyway, right? Look how they helped you out there!

You can’t trust kittens.

I’ve had this experience a lot of times. In case you didn’t know, I’m generally a very cheap person. There’s a reason for this. I’m also a fairly poor person, so the cheapness thing really works well there. But sometimes I try to give to a good cause. When I was a kid, I liked giving to the Angel Tree fund. You’d pick an angel off the tree with the name of some kid who needed new clothes. And you bought the clothes and wrapped them up and gave them to the Salvation Army people, and then those guys gave them to the ones in need. Some kid got new clothes! Yay, me, I helped.

That feel good feelin’.

At least I thought I did, until one day a friend told me, “Well, you know, they return those clothes and then use the money on something else. Like watches.” Like, ZOMG, really? That’s horrible! They took money I freely gave, not expecting anything in return, and. . . and. . . they bought a new watch? Holy crapsters! Poor people don’t need to know what time it is! All they gotta do is sit back and watch the welfare checks pour in.

Alice, you jerk.

Oh, yeah, cause that’s the life, you know. Here’s a secret. I took government “hand-outs” once. It was for purely selfish reasons. I wanted to feed my kids. I know, right? I was proud, and I didn’t like going to those appointments on the “bad side of town.” It sure as heck wasn’t convenient. You had to have documentation, and you had to bring your kid to get her finger pricked (Four-year-old Thing One yelled “My haaaand, my haaaand” when they pricked hers), and sometimes you were there for hours. But I was at home with my kids then, because I felt that was the best place for me to be. Oh, yeah, and because if I’d had a job, the salary would have all gone to daycare. That too.

But, Alice, if you didn’t have enough money, you shouldn’t have had children! It’s your own fault! Maybe it was my fault. But it wasn’t their fault. So I sucked it up, and I got a card for food, and I bought government juice and cheese and eggs. One day I had a cart loaded with the stuff, and saw the lady behind me watching. I felt embarrassed until she said, “I’m glad my money goes to help sweet little families like yours.”

That comment cost her nothing. But it made me cry. She could have looked at it an entirely different way. She could have poked a hole in my already partially deflated balloon. But she saw it another way. She saw giving the way I see it. I work full-time now. My kids are older. We are hardly rolling in dough, but we can get by, so even though it might smart a little, I’m glad the government takes money out of my check. Because once I needed that little bit of help, and now others need it. Believe me, very few people are getting rich off of handouts. If they are, I have to commend them. Those panhandlers stand there day after day, asking everyone who comes by for a dime. I figure they earn their money at least as well as most people with office jobs do, especially when roughly 80 percent of their time is spent facebooking.

Not that I know anyone who does that.

I’m totally workingggg!

People are going to judge, no matter what. I know people might have wondered how someone who needed help buying groceries could afford a decent car. What they didn’t know was that my bleeding heart liberal parents sold it to me well below cost. And I spent my tax return on it. My parents have worked hard their entire lives. No one gave them help. They put themselves through college. They worked, they saved. But my father said, “I worked hard, and no one helped me. So I want to use my check to help other people. That’s how it is supposed to work.”

That’s how it is supposed to work. Isn’t that what most religions talk about? Tis better to give than to receive? I know Jesus was totally out there going, hey, hey, wait a second, where’s my take? Here I go and give you guys a fish dinner, and do I get anything? Well, see if I help you jerks out anymore!

I’m not giving you guys any more muffins.

Yeah, no, he just gave to people. And he didn’t check their credentials first. He didn’t go, “Hey, stop stoning that lady! She . . . oh, wait, she’s a prostitute. Go on ahead. Don’t mind me!” He helped her. He helped lepers. When a man asked how he could get to Heaven, Jesus said, “Give all your money to the poor, and follow me.” And yet, I see so many religious people who oppose welfare and government programs for the poor. Guess what? Jesus wrote me, and he thinks you guys who vote against that stuff suck.

Not really, Jesus wouldn’t do that. He’s too nice. But I’m not. If you never, ever help anyone without expecting something in return, you suck. If you gripe when people raise money to help out someone in need, you suck. Once you give, you give. It is no longer in your hands. They can do with it what they will. What they do has no effect on what you did. You still gave of yourself. You still did the right thing.

I pulled this one from the 2011 archives (otherwise known as when Alice lived at blogger and had no readers sadface). . . just like in a real library!

This ain’t yo mama’s library. I’m pretty sure that’s a library’s slogan somewhere, possibly somewhere in the Bronx, though more likely in some nice suburban area that is attempting to be “hip”. So hip that they haven’t figured out that no one uses that word anymore. You see, the idea is that if libraries are to survive, we must appeal to everybody, because everybody is a stat – er, an important member of society. Plus, they technically pay us through their taxes. So it pays to please them.

If you are a public librarian, as I was for several years, this involves pleasing the public. The public consists of all those huddled masses causing the librarians to yearn to breathe free. Old people, young people, poor people, dumb people, stinky people, weird people, you see all kinds there. And you help them, even if they wear tin foil on their heads and insist the government has caused their open head injury. (Haha, yeah that wasn’t a joke). If you want to meet all sorts of new, interesting, and possibly dangerous people, work at the public library.

Remember, the library is always a safe place.

There are other libraries to choose from, of course. You could try to be a school librarian. Not bad, eh? Summers off, and all you have to do is read books to kids! Oh, and uh teach lessons to six or seven classes of kids from all grade levels and with various special needs. And do every bit of clerical work, because you have no staff. And listen to teachers tell you how good you have it. They have to be with CHILDREN all day long, for crying out loud, and they want vengeance. This often consists of assigning children projects on subjects like playa lakes, on which the library has exactly one book. On lakes. Period. My mother was a public school librarian for years. Her advice when queried is “Run. Run fast.”

. . . And then they gave the librarian a RAISE.

At the moment, I am an academic librarian. You don’t get a lot of bums here. Most of the students know how to bathe. And usually they can find their way to the library without their teachers, at least after they’ve shown them once or twice where the building is, and that it, in fact, exists. They don’t, however, know how to get anywhere without being plugged into at least 3 electronic devices at one time. These cutting edge bionic children are our future. And our future doesn’t know where the reference desk is – that big desk with the giant sign labeled REFERENCE. Not that it matters, since they also don’t understand what reference is, or why one would need it. I mean, we got rid of books years ago, right?

Nope, sorry to dissapoint. Everything has not yet been converted to digital. By the time it is, we will certainly then be writing in midair with our fingers, and paying through the nose for it – perhaps literally through the nose. Until then, while we do have computers, databases, DVDs, and even a coffee shop in the library, we’ve got books too. Many students find they make great coasters.

What? I need all this for facebo . . . studying!

But I’m being mean to the students. They aren’t all overly connected, out-to-lunch dunderheads. Occasionally you get the stray one that has somehow managed to get away from the pack, who really likes learning, and books, and hanging out in libraries. They’re kind of like those albino lions – protect them! Most are more like cows, wandering aimlessly, mooing here and there and walking into walls and signs labeled with where they need to go. Sure we could warn them, but they can’t hear with the I-Pods in their ears, and they can’t see while texting, so it wouldn’t do much good.

But this is where I am, and it works. Sadly, there are many who don’t see the need for libraries. These people often never used libraries, and it shows on their grade reports. Lucky for them, you don’t actually have to know anything to run for public office. Unluckily for us, these are the people making decisions on where to cut funds. “Heyyy, I know, how about that stuffy building with those – whatchamacallims – oh yeah, the sandwiches with the words inside. Books! And while we’re at it, let’s just knock down the whole durn university, with all them elitist snobs. Let them find a job doing real work, like misusing federal funds to buy new office furniture. That’ll show ’em.”

We have one shot. We must prove we are vital to the future. To all you future librarian hopefuls, I charge you with this mission. Update your resume, and make sure it includes food service.

Yeah, we’re back with another dose of strange addictions. Thank goodness they give us the warning at the beginning not to try this at home. I was so close to nomming on my fruit shaped eraser. It’s so realistic and smells good too!

Boobies Edition!

This episode involves no eating of nonedible products, so yay! It does, however, involve a lady so goofed up they devoted the entire episode just to her. Or it might have been because TLC really liked seeing those ginormous boobs.

How big were they, Alice? Dolly Parton looks like a Double Minus A cup compared to this woman. Heck, the bride of Godzilla would probably have smaller mammary glands, and they’d be much more functional too. If you’ve ever played a video game, or read comics, you know how insane they can get with drawing the boobs. These chicks have boobs bigger than their heads. It’s crazy. This lady leaves them behind. Way behind. When I first saw this woman, my jaw dropped, and as you know, I’ve seen a lot of weird crap just working in a library.

But nothing quite like this . . .

Not only does she have a rack that can actually serve drinks (she demonstrates), she also has an enormous silicon-filled caboose. It’s – just – I think even Sir Mix-A-Lot would be saying “Daaaaahmmmn, guuuurl!” The thing is a bench. You could probably sit on her comfortably, except then she’d fall over on her boobs and not be able to get up. Really – she has to have help getting up if she lays on her back. I can imagine all sorts of reasons this lady might be heading to the ER. Suffocation is just one of them.

She has so much silicon in her boobs, that they weigh something like 20 pounds. And they do party tricks. If she puts a flashlight under her boobs, they light up from all the fluid. They could make a science fiction movie based on this lady, and I can pretty much guarantee you’d get the usual demographic (18-25 year old males) filling the seats.

Lookie, her boobs double as jack-o-lanterns!

Her college aged son tries to persuade her to maybe drain the boobs a bit, but she surprises him with her decision to make them twice as big! Poor kid. It had to be fun having this lady as class mom. Oops, got my boobs in the frosting! Anyway, he expresses concern for her welfare, and says he wonders which she cares about more – her big boobs or her kids? She skirts around it, but answer? Boobs.

Her youngest child, a girl around nine, is the best part of the entire program. They interview her, asking what she thinks about her mother’s boobs. She says, “I like that they pay the rent, but they’re really weird.” I love this kid. Apparently, mom does modeling for people who like women with impossible proportions – I’m guessing car magazines. But there’s the kid, saying it up front – maybe you make some money, but you’re a freak. If your nine-year-old can figure this out, you might want to think it over, lady.

One melon plus one melon equals – I wonder if I can get them this size?

But thinking does not seem her strong suit. Perhaps she has had some silicon injected into her brain along with her boobs, butt, oh and I forgot, her lips which look like someone smashed them in a meat processor and they swelled up into little sausages. But clearly, this is not enough for her. She needs more.

She visits the plastic surgeon, but even he just shakes his head, refusing to work on her because it will freaking kill her. All that silicon is not very healthy, nor is going through that many surgeries. Also he might be the only plastic surgeon to have actual qualms about working on someone who’s batshit crazy. Besides the dangers of silicon and surgery, I’m not sure how she’d walk without toppling over, even with the substantial butt in back. I don’t know how she does it now. She can’t even find clothes to fit her warped body. I mean, damn, even Barbie can find clothes. Lots of them.

I just . . . couldn’t think up a caption for this one. Give it your best shot.

But she’s no Barbie, even if she does have enough plastic to be one. At the end of the show, TLC reports that she has found a surgeon willing to do the operation in the next few months. Wait for a news story about a woman’s boobs spontaneously combusting into flames. I be it will be our girl!

What about you guys? Have you ever considered plastic surgery? What would you want to change?

I want to add more of a post to this, cause I could write dozens. If you don’t know Merry you really should because she is more than fibromyalgia which is taking over her life. She is freaking hilarious. We me through a fruitcake and bonded over retro ads about hair brushes that double as . . . other things. Also lysol douches and tampons. I happen to have a head cold, so it’s possible that this is making no sense, so just head over to Zoe’s blog at Behind the Abuse and find out how to help my friend Merry.

So I was really disappointed this Saturday when there was no “ER Sexy Times” episode. Instead it was yet another show with sex in the title – “Secret Sex Stories”. So secret it’s totally on cable! Wow, I was really interested since it was going to have a woman with the biggest natural boobs like ev-ah, but they didn’t glow in the dark or anything special, so bo-ring. Also, this show didn’t promise to send one of the idiots involved to the hospital. I mean, duh, the best part is watching them get injured. I figured instead I would just take the quiz that TLC had on their website, because you know how much I love taking pointless quizzes.

The quiz was called “Bedroom Habits Exposed: How Does Your Sex Life Compare?” Oh, goody! You all wanted to know what was goin’ down in the Wonderhood right? I didn’t think so. There were some fascinating questions, and even better were the answers people gave.

You see? TLC IS about learning!

Each question played a clip from ER Sexy Times underneath. Sometimes the clip had something to do with the question, but most of the time it was just a random bit from the show. I was sad not to see the tree sex people, since I definitely most identified with them.

The first question was: “Where’s the best place to have a quickie?”

Now some of you weirdos might be thinking “bed” or even “couch” but sorry, neither of these are listed cause who does that? The choices were:

A. In a dark closet

B. It’s going down in the bathroom

C. Hit the stop button and get it done in the elevator

D. Pull off the highway and get in the back of the car.

It was really hard to decide. I mean, who hasn’t been getting dressed for work in a dark closet, tripped, and landed on their husband’s peen? Maybe people not married to men. And the bathroom? As long as you have the shower head, who needs anyone else, right? Sex in an elevator – lovin’ it up as you’re goin’ down? Heck yeah! This way you can not only inconvenience all the people waiting for the elevator, you can get bodily fluids all over a public place, and probably get filmed by the security camera. The video will then appear on youtube, and make you wildly famous. Humping in the back seat of the car is great too, especially when a cop pulls over to arrest you for public indecency.

It’s not a real date night unless you end up in the back of one of these.

I left out a few of the questions because the answers were so sexist. I mean, for some reason TLC assumes only women and gay guys are taking this quiz. I guess the straight men are all busy taking quizzes on what kind of power tool they’d go out with or something. So I just left the most P.C. questions, just to show I care.

Next question: What are you most afraid of hurting during sex?

Oh, geez, definitely my vagina

Penis, that’s the baby maker

All the sex could cause a heart attack

I’m afraid of head injury

I don’t know about you men, but I’m pretty concerned about hurting my coochie. But we ladies are also concerned about your body parts because, hello, babiezz! If your penis is all smooshed, how you gonna knock us up, huh? Otherwise, like, who cares? A heart attack is totally possible, because sometimes we eat at KFC before getting’ our groove on. Moving on, head injuries? Oh, yeah, big worry there. My husband is always whacking my head into walls, car doors, trees, telephone poles, and wherever else we happen to be when the mood strikes. I always bring Tylenol for protection, just in case.

Totally describes my sex life!

Question Three: What gets you in the mood?

Reading a romance novel; hello Mr. Grey

A great date, followed by drinks in the apartment

An adult film, it’s to the point.

Champagne and strawberries

What gets me in the mood? Well, besides “ER Sexy Times” and “balloon animals”, I’m obviously gonna have to go with A. Reading 50 Shades of Grey. That is such a major turn on I can hardly keep from puking in my sexy bathroom.

Foreplay or Ipecac Replacement?

Question Four: How do you describe your lovemaking?

Sensual and Tender

Like Rihanna’s song “S&M”

Unemotional

Yee haw, ride ‘em, cowboy!

Sensual and tender? Hahaha! How risky is that? No, better to go with whips and chains and your occasional buttplug. But if your budget is low, you can always DIY S&M with rakes and leaf blowers. I’m not sure if my lovemaking is unemotional. I think it’s very emotional, especially if the Olympics is playing on the TV at the same time. And as for the last one? Oh, yes, of course, nothing like sex on a mechanical bull to keep your juices going and your marriage hot, hot, hot!

Example of DIY S&M

Question Five: What’s your favorite part about sex?

The connection with another human being

It’s a great workout

The foreplay

Ummm, hello . . . orgasm!

Pfft, I love how one of the answers is “connection with another human being.” Good grief, thanks to “Strange Addictions” I now know that human beings are actually optional. In case you’re not sure about your partner, here is a handy cheat sheet you can use when selecting dates. The following are NOT human:

Cars

Inflatable dolphins

Camping stoves

Donald Trump’s hair piece

Donald Trump

Not human.

Alright then, with that out of the way, is sex a great workout? It depends on how long you can keep going at it. You know how some people say they have sex for hours and hours? If it takes that long to have sex, someone’s doing something wrong. Foreplay can only go on for so long, unless you happen to be in a porno. So foreplay’s out too. That leaves us with “orgasm” as the best part of sex. Like, duh, of course it is. Unless you’re like this lady here, then it gets kind of old.

Okay then the answers. The largest majority of people (32%) thought quickies in the bathroom were the best. And here I thought you like, went pee in there and stuff. I never realized how much romance could be found! Lesson learned. 47% were afraid of hurting the old va-jay-jay (I have to wonder how many of these people were men or balloon animals), and 24% were afraid of hurting the babiezz maker. Only 15% were afraid of head injuries, so SOME people have really boring sex lives, clearly.

46% said a great date and booze got them in the mood. Only 15% thought 50 Shades of Grey got them in the mood. You might note that this is the same percentage of people who were afraid of head injuries during sex. Coincidence? I think not. 33% described their lovemaking as “Ride ‘em, cowboy!” That’s nice to know. Finally, favorite part of sex? It was pretty evenly divided between “connection with another human” and “orgasm.” No word on whether the “orgasm” ones read my cheat sheet or not.

So there you have it. I have to say, this quiz was at least as informative as Cosmo, and had the added bonus of video clips which you usually don’t have in Cosmo. Otherwise Cosmo would be much more popular with both sexes. If you’d like to take the quiz, go to this link here.

People say flying is safer than driving. I think there are a lot of reasons behind this. For one thing, most people have a couple of cars, but few people have a couple of planes parked in front of their houses. Unless they’re John Travolta. Which means most people drive a lot more than they fly. So there are more wrecks than there are plane crashes.

Doesn’t mean planes are way better than cars. I like what one comedian said about it – “At least when my car stalls, I don’t plummet 30,000 feet.” Good point, man.

Also, planes have creepy faces.

Same with computers. I like computers. They make a lot of stuff easier. You can copy and paste without glue, and you can save entire books to tiny travel drives that you can then lose, and you don’t get ink on your fingers or bed sheets. I used to write in spiral notebooks with an erasable ink pen. I couldn’t erase the ink off my sheets, which happened because I always had a spiral and a pen in my bed writing stories, and sometimes forgot about them. I used to have stacks of these notebooks.

I don’t write by hand much anymore. I blame school for destroying my hand with all the notes I had to write. My hand cramps if I write more than a paragraph now. But that’s okay, because we have computers, and we can store stuff on the Internetz or even better on the Cloud.

I like clouds. Sometimes they look like bunnies, or Velociraptors. I’m not so sure about storing information on them. They don’t seem that stable, what with the fluffiness.

Happy little cloud . . .

Last night I wrote on a story. I spent a few hours. And then I saved it. I’m pretty sure I did, because it always asks if I’m sure I don’t want to save and it didn’t ask that. Computers are supposed to check on you in case you’re stupid that way. Right after it disappeared from the screen, I could not find it. I thought it was accidentally saved in a temporary file. You can’t find those blasted things for anything. I did all the stuff it said to recover files in the troubleshooting guide, except actually shoot the computer, which I was tempted to do.

There are various ways to extract files from your computer.

I think my work is on a freaking cloud somewhere. Poof.

Pen and ink might be old fashioned. But when I’m done writing, it doesn’t plummet 30,000 feet into the cybersphere either. Sometimes I miss the old days, even with inky sheets.

There is a trend, it seems, that the only good reading is reading that is serious and depressing. I don’t quite understand this. I mean, it’s really much harder to be funny than it is to be sad. Anyone can say sad stuff. For instance, you could say “My cute, fuzzy little kitten is dead.” Cute dead fuzzy little kittens are sad. Now making cute dead little fuzzy kittens funny? That takes talent! Also sickness in the head. But mostly talent!

Leave me alonnnnne, Alice.

Yet we don’t like that, do we? No, to be taken seriously you have to be dramatic. That’s why you rarely get any “ha ha” movies winning academy awards. Or silly books winning major book prizes (although Dave Barry did win a Pulitzer – yay Dave!) And there are those who think silly blogging is worthless. If you’re blogging about funny stuff, then you aren’t recognizing that there is poverty, and disease, and destruction, and dead kittens. And Republicans! (Yeah, you know I couldn’t resist adding that one.)

But that’s not true. Humor doesn’t make you forget that there are horrible things in the world. Humor is what allows you to handle the horrible things in the world. Sometimes humor is dark, because sometimes the world is dark. Dead fuzzy kittens fall into the dark humor category, generally, unless we’re talking about Persians cause those things are messed up. Kidding! Hahaha, please don’t send PETA after me.

Send them. Now. She’s horrible.

So then we should only blog about serious topics, right? Don’t get me wrong – serious blogging is needed. I know several really good bloggers who blog about serious, important topics like abuse, chronic pain, depression, and more. And unfortunate kitten accidents, probably. And people who are so disturbed they keep bringing up cute past-tense animals. But – wait – if you’re blogging about unfortunate events, then you’re still not doing anything. You’re not MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.

You didn’t realize that, did you? Blogging about poverty doesn’t end poverty. I know, it floored me when I found this out too. Blogging about abuse doesn’t stop abuse either. And blogging about Republicans? Yeah, they are still here. So we should really just quit this blogging business, you guys, and get out there and MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I thought about this a whole lot when I was composing this here blog post. I mean, when I wasn’t considering whether dead monkeys would sound creepier than dead kittens. I came to a conclusion. I was going to change the world.

You realize you talk about stupid stuff, right?

So this morning I got up and went to a homeless shelter where I served people breakfast I’d made myself out of twigs and blackberries, then got them all houses (John McCain will never miss them). And right after that I flew to Africa and I gave people food (would you believe those people in the Unicef commericals were just standing around NOT giving sandwiches to these kids? They were right there the whole time!) I also gave out a bunch of free drug samples I stole from my doctor’s office. Some of it was enhancement pills, but who knows, they might be useful. Before I left, I adopted a child not yet claimed by Angelina Jolie and I flew back to the states just in time for lunch. Instead of eating (I gave my sandwich to a less fortunate kitten), I cured Cancer. Then I went to all the inner cities and gathered up all the guns and the gangs and we joined hands and sang Kum-ba-yah and drank coke and promised to be bffs forever. Then I took the guns and aimed them at all the abusers, especially the child abusers, and they all ran and jumped off cliffs. On my break I created purple glasses so that when people wore them everyone looked purple and they weren’t sure who they were supposed to hate anymore. I also wrote letters to every nation on earth and said “Quit it” and they all went “D’oh” and stopped their wars and dismantled their nuclear facilities. Finally, I went home, gave my supper to a homeless guy I made into my personal butler after teaching him how to be courteous and wear bow ties, and I cured AIDS. Then I worked out legislation that allowed gay people to marry because seriously there is no reason they can’t have FUN too and they invited me to a rocking party where I was celebrated as savior to us all, but I humbly declined the giant statue dedicated in my honor. Instead I had it melted down and made into a swimming pool for kids without swimming pools. Then I went to bed.

I think she’s lying.

You might have noticed in there that I forgot to go to my job. Also my husband and children were strangely absent. And there was no blog post, and people got kind of bored. Here I’d gone and fixed everything, but why? Why do we want to fix things? What makes all this struggle worth it? Happiness? Justice? Relief?

What do you feel when you read a really good piece of writing? Or see a fantastic piece of art? Or listen to beautiful music? For a moment, do you not feel so hopeless? For a moment, do you think change is possible? I do. Can I say I’ve CHANGED THE WORLD? No. Not the whole world. Just a very small part of it. There are people out there that do extraordinary things. People who work to cure diseases, who go into inner cities and teach, who feed and house people, who push for legislation to better the lives of the people around them. I work at a library. I let people get books. I don’t change a great deal. But once I looked for information for an elderly man recently diagnosed with Cancer. I didn’t find what he was looking for, but he said “Thank you for trying. Thank you for listening.”

I made a difference to him. I make a difference to my family. I make a difference, just maybe, to one of you reading. After all, without me, you might be tempted to eat baby powder. Or listen to really awful music without realizing it. You might even be try to read 50 Shades of Awful. Maybe you might laugh. Maybe you might feel a little better than you did five minutes ago.

The world is a big place. There are a lot of people playing their parts. Do not doubt your own part. If you want to do more, then do it. But don’t forget what has already been done, the ripples that you have created in your own pond just by being you. Interesting, unique, and possibly gassy you.

This time on Strange Addictions . . . okay, I heard about this episode. It’s about as infamous as the tampon scene in 50 Shades of Grey. But – the actual watching of it – ZOMG – the horror. The horror.

Run. Run now. While you can!

Where was I? Oh, right, this episode we have a lady who snorts baby powder, and a guy who is in love with his car. Okay. Buck up, Alice.

First up we have Jaye, a 28-year-old from Houston, Texas who likes to snort baby powder up her nose. It’s like Cocaine, only with Cocaine I’m guessing you actually get some sort of high. I have no idea what you get when you snort baby powder.

You get weird, peeps.

Well, besides looking like you’ve had your face in a bunch of powdered donuts. Come to think of it, she might get along with that family I talked about last time who put the baby powder on their donuts. I wonder if one could snort an entire baby powder covered donut up her nose? You might be wondering why someone would decide one day to just snort baby powder.

Because it just looked so yummy?

Well, apparently she liked the smell, so she’d hold it close to her face. And then she’d touch it to her nose. And then, oh heck with it, let’s just suck that stuff right up there! On the plus side, her nose smells like Love’s Baby Soft. On the negative, she’s been inhaling white powder into her lungs. For SIXTEEN YEARS. She goes to the doctor, who, shock, says this is not a good idea. I bet he wouldn’t like baby powder on donuts, either. I forget whether she stopped snorting the baby powder. Maybe because I was soooo horrified by the next segment.

Just to lighten the mood a little, I’m going to put up a picture of a cute kitten. Remember the kitten, peeps.

I know, kitty, I know.

Ooookay, so next we have Nathaniel. Nat’s 27-years-old and he has a car. Named Chase. And they’re kind of going steady. He and the car. For five years. And . . . and . . . he has sex with the car. Yup. He does.

Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur . . .

What fascinates me is that Chase the car is a boy. So does that mean Nathaniel is gay, or just car gay? What exactly was it that made Chase a male rather than a female? Is my car a male or a female? I don’t know. I haven’t done that much checking under the hood. I was a little confused.

My reaction to the idea of car sex.

Anyway, I couldn’t figure out how they could possibly have an intimate relationship. Until TLC showed him french-kissing the car. And – fondling the steering wheel. I just . . . why . . I don’t . . nope, nope, nope.

Dad laughs nervously, clears his throat, and says “It’s okay, son, I accept you.” I think this is because there’s a camera rolling. Otherwise I’m pretty sure there would HAVE to be cursing. No one’s this understanding. This is why I hate the argument that if you let people marry the same sex, suddenly they’ll start marrying cars and goats and whatever. Not the same thing, people. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

But Dad, we’re in love!

Just how does this even happen? You’re just walking through the car lot one day and “OMG she’s the one!” Do you start off dating scooters and work your way up to cars or do you just go for the big times right away? So many questions I so don’t want answered.

I don’t think I can ever get a car like Chase without wondering what the last owner did to it. Nope, nope, nope.

So, peeps, anyone ever been tempted to nom on some baby powder? Have you ever seen your car as more than a friend? Please don’t tell me.

Saturday night I was trolling TLC and came across an episode of Untold Stories of the ER: Sex Edition. Ah, okay, so this is what prompted them to make an entire series out of just the sex related injuries they got in the ER. What an inspiration these guys were. There are some real “doozies” here.

How it all began!

First, we have a guy with his peen stuck in a camping stove. I think it’s a Coleman. The stove. Anyway, this guy walks into the ER with it still attached in front of him, covered just by a blanket. That gets you some attention, even in a crowded ER. They take the guy back and see that, yup, there’s a camping stove on there and slinky is stuck tight. Luckily for the guy, he’s still kind of stoned (are you surprised?) and isn’t feeling the entire, uh, weight of the situation.

The nurse is male. I’ve seen him on other episodes of the show, and he seems like a cool guy. He’s not afraid to admit that since a very sensitive part of the male anatomy has been half shredded and stuck in a metal object, he’s having a bit of a hard time dealing with it.

The doc asks him how his peen came to be stuck inside the stove. The man explains that he and his girlfriend were stoned and in the midst of their funsies, she suggested that he stick his peen inside a hole in the stove. So of course the moron does it. Hard to say whether he still would have done it even if he wasn’t stoned. Once inside, it gets stuck, and the more the guy tries to yank it out, the more it swells. Basically peen is like Pooh Bear when he eats too much honey and gets stuck in that hole. Oh, bother.

Is that a camping stove under there, or are you just happy to see me?

The doctor suggests that they call someone in to cut the stove off of the guy’s peen. The nurse looks at him like “WTF?” but summons a maintenance man as he’s told. The poor old maintenance guy arrives, takes one look at the stove and says “No way.” Then he passes out flat on the floor and they have two emergencies. Yay!

Next, they call the Fire Department. A young, virile fireman walks in, looks at the stove, and runs back out. He sticks his head between his legs and tries not to vomit. This is a guy who fights fires for a living here. Not looking good.

But there wasn’t a warning against it on the stove, doctor!

Finally, they decide to call a freaking urologist, who says they should take some giant needles and drain the peen so that they can then slide it out of the stove. This seems the most promising idea so far, though the guy, even stoned, realizes that giant needles to the peen is really gonna sting like the dickens.

They can’t give him much pain relief since he’s already on so many chemicals, so the guy screams bloody murder while the poor nurse tries not to freak the heck out like the other two guys. But once the blood is drained, they get the stove off of him, finally. The nurse bandages him and leaves for a moment. When he returns, the dude is gone, but he helpfully left them the stove. He jokes that they could have a cook-out, you know, if they were insane, then dumps the stove in a container labeled medical waste. I bet they don’t get that kind of waste very often.

In case you were thinking that was the most uncomfy situation of the night – wrong! There is also a young guy who had a stroke. He’s with his girlfriend. The doctor wonders why this would happen to someone so young. Then in comes the wife. Whoops. They are sent outside since they are making the guy’s blood pressure rise again. But that’s not the end of it because later she comes back and there is a third woman in there with him. The dude with the stroke can’t talk, but just shrugs. I think the doctor now wants to kill him. It’d have to be a totally justifiable homicide there.

Ladies, ladies – there’s a guy in the next room with a camping stove on his peen. Check him out.

The women all find each other out in the ER and are sent outside where one tries to run over another with her car. The doctor remarks that it’s like an episode of “Jerry Springer”. Pretty much. I’m not sure why three women would fight over this one guy when there are plenty of douchebags to go around.

So they treat him for the stroke, and the doctor comes back later to check on him in the hospital. He’s amazingly doing better, and she suggests that maybe he might want to not date so many women, seeing as how this nearly killed the guy. Our Romeo whines that he loves them all, so can’t stop. Then he tries to hit on the doctor, who is shockingly not impressed by him.

Okay, I saved the best one for last. No, really! Guy number 3 comes in with a vibrator shoved way up his bum. I don’t know if he said how this came to be, since I missed a few minutes of the show in there. No doubt he accidentally sat on it. Anyway, not only is there a vibrator up his butt, it’s still running! Talk about your literal insult to injury. Vrroooom! The guy remarks that they are long-lasting batteries.

Cue sad trombone. Wah, wah, wahhhhhh.

Yup, I’m using this a lot.

So they do a scan of the guy and sure enough, there it is. He’s managed to, like, get it up near the hip area. I’m not even sure what organs are around up there. Impressive. The doctor says that, no, salad tongs are not going to get this thing out, and they’re going to have to call a gastroenterologist to get the thing out surgically.

The guy is understandably freaked out about this, but seems even more concerned when the insurance guy comes in to take down his information. He insists that there not be a record of this. That’s something to think about, dude, next time you decide to shove something up your backside. Ah, well. The guy offers to pay for the procedure in cash. He shows the doctor stacks of thousand dollar bills. I bet that’s what Donald Trump did when he had this problem.

Like I said, I missed a bit of this one, so I’m not sure if they addressed just how the guy came to not only have a vibrator in his bo-bo but also be in possession of massive amounts of cash. I can imagine some interesting possibilities there. Did he rob a bank with a vibrator, only to have a concerned citizen put it where the sun don’t shine? No telling, but I like that scenario myself.

While the doctor has, sadly, seen this sort of thing dozens of times before, he hasn’t had a patient offer to pay entirely in cash up front. They have to ask about the cost, and when it comes to over 10,000 dollars, the guy just counts it out right in front of them. Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all. The hospital takes it though, cause you know, at least they’re sure they’re going to get paid for correcting this idiocy.

Well, doc, I was just minding my own business when it came in out of nowhere!

So the guy gets the surgery done without his insurance knowing about it, but the hospital still has to have a pathology report. They discover that the object removed from the patient was a small pink vibrator, and they all laugh. Now, seriously peeps, doctors are professionals and they’re going to help you out of whatever jam you get yourself or your insides into, but if you think they’re not going to joke about this among themselves, you’ve got to be kidding me. You will be the talk of the staff for at least a day or two, when the next guy arrives with a live hamster up there.

So there we go, camping stove on the peen guy, Don Juan stroke victim, and vibrator up the bum dude. Just another night at work. I’m glad I work in a library, where the most I’ve encountered was a guy who liked to get off to animal porn on the internet. Whew.

Any of you guys heard any wild ER stories? About your, um, friends of course. Don’t worry, secret is safe with me – and all my readers. And the spambots. And possibly a few cats. But don’t be afraid to share!

It may be Valentine’s Day, but we’reall going down the Rabbit Hole today, dearies – whether you like it or not.

However, I think you’re going to rather enjoy this tumble. Our guest today is WordPress’ ownAlice – and she’s fantastic. But if you don’t believe me

(shame on you)

take a gander at her firstpost, one of her snazziest cyber-messages, and one of her latest masterpieces. My mind has been adrift in a sea of confusion of late and so I am admittedly off my game, but Alice is rarely off her game, kids. She writes from the heart (sounds cliché, I know, but some bloggers are less than genuine), she has an actualbrain in that wonderful head of hers and she even has a second blogthat features images like this: